


E for Everybody

by galacticabyss



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Catharsis, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Child Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence, Poltergeists, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Protective Wilbur Soot, Reconciliation, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, spoilers for march 1st stream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticabyss/pseuds/galacticabyss
Summary: The first thing Tommy noticed was how cold it was.---Major Spoilers for the March 1st streams.Title is from what Wilbur rates his hands (E for everybody).
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 5
Kudos: 147





	E for Everybody

The first thing Tommy noticed was how cold it was, like he had just stepped into a winter's morning back in the Empire. Nostalgic, almost, in the worst sort of way. Like he could turn around and see the entrance of the castle, Wilbur and Techno bundled up and shoving at each other, with Phil further behind and smiling at them all.

He opened his eyes, somehow expecting to see white snow and a sprawling kingdom, and was met with...

L'Manburg.

Not New L'manburg, and certainly not L'mancrater, but actual L'Manburg. The one at the height of Wilbur's presidency, blackstone walls still built high and proud and protective around the city.

There was just one major difference: this version was a complete ghost town. A frozen picture of a past that had never really quite been. Wilbur's L'Manburg had never been this clean, this...white. Like a photograph left to fade in the sunlight, everything had a slightly bleached quality to it.

Tommy slowly walked through it, trying to piece together exactly what had brought him here. It could be a dream, considering the last thing he saw was obsidian walls and an all too familiar face in an orange jumpsuit. If it was a Dream, then Tommy wasn't exactly going to go looking for a wake up.

The less time that he spent in the prison with that smug son of a bitch the better, even though it was getting to be real close to the end of the week. Which meant that Sam was going to come and he was going to get him out of it and he would never have to look at Dream ever again.

_ Something about that sentence tasted foul in his mouth _ .

Tommy moved on, shoulders set as he walked towards the White House that they had all built together, and kept on past it. No one but him and Wilbur really knew about the small shelter underground.

A bomb shelter, that's what they had joked about. Joked, like the thought of L'Manburg blowing up was something hilarious.

(Three times, L'Manburg had lost all of her three lives and now she was gone for good.)

(Who else had lost all three lives?)

Maybe the dream would stop when he entered the shelter, but he still had to. There was a force, pulling on him like a string attached to his naval, and his hand met the door and pushed.

He expected to wake up, expected all of the cold to leave his body and be replaced with neverending heat and taunts. 

That is not what happened.

The door opened, with a fresh blast of even colder air, and in front of him were two long-dead men. 

His older brother, still dressed in the horrific Pogtopia coat that summoned up long buried memories. A cigarette was in his right hand and a set of cards in the left. 

Across from him sat the ex-dictator of Manburg, Schlatt. Wearing the same rumpled suit and tie that he had died in, though now the tie hung completely undone around his neck. One hand held a bottle of whiskey, and in the other another set of cards.

"Tommy?" Wilbur's voice was almost horrified, and Tommy tore his gaze away from Schlatt. Wilbur's eyes weren't Ghostbur's, they weren't the paled out sockets that never held any true warmth to them. They also weren't the crazed, almost golden color of his worst moments in Pogtopia. They were the same warm brown that he had in L'Manburg, slightly haunted and darker than the Empire, but calm. At ease, if a little tired.

"Wil?"

" _ Oh _ ," Wilbur breathed out, cards and cigarette dropping to the ground as he rushed to hold Tommy against his chest. 

The freezing touch of the dead forced memories back into their slots. Tommy's brain fired with flashes of blackstone and lava and green and fists and his own blood and his breathing shuddered in his chest. 

He was dead. Dream had taken his last life and now he was dead and with his brother and an ex-dictator.

He had a lot of things to say to his brother, a lot of apologies and a lot of cursing, but all that came out of his mouth was, "I told you, I'd see you soon, Wilby."

"Not like this, Toms." He sounded devastated, like someone had torn his heart out in front of him and squished it. "Never like this."

\---

"I'm taking a trip," Wilbur said, voice hushed so as to not wake up the passed out teenager (god, Tommy was just a teenager, he couldn't even get drunk legally). 

"Oh yeah? How you gonna do that, Loverboy?" Schlatt was sprawled out on the other couch, half empty bottle of whiskey against his open thighs.

"I'm going to go to the prison-"

"-I asked how, idiot, now what. You're dead, or have you somehow forgotten in the five hours that we've been keeping your little brother calm?" There was a slight sneer on his lips, and Wilbur bit back a comment about Schlatt being upset that he no longer had Wilbur's undivided attention.

"Don't you watch movies, Blades? I'm going to manifest as a ghost," he vocalized, waggling his fingers at him.

"You already tried that, Virgo, and now there's an amnesiac version of you wandering around with what could be crystal meth-"

"-It's just a crystal, Schlatt, it's not fucking drugs." Wilbur adjusted his beanie, keeping his back straight and the crossbow strapped to his arm. "But I sent Ghostbur there because I wanted everyone to be happy. This? My good sir, this is purely business." 

There was something funny about Chekhov's Gun. No one had ever said when the third act was.

"Ah," Schlatt hummed, head slightly tilted up at Wilbur. His golden eyes glittered in the low light of the bunker, a half smile curling his lips, "You're going to come back covered in blood, aren't you?"

"Absolutely not," he faked offense, "blood is a strictly material substance - it won't carry over."

For once in a decade, the same sort of smile stretched over both of their lips.

"I'll make sure the kid stays asleep while you're gone, Loverboy." Schlatt laughed, tilting the lip of the bottle towards where Tommy was curled up on the bed they had manifested. 

"Don't knock him back out again if he wakes up, okay? I want someone to brag to about what I've done," he stared at himself in the mirror, and his eyes trailed down to the sleeping form of his dead brother. His poor, dead brother who had died with no one but his killer.

He deserved more, and if Phil can only resurrect one person with the book then it should be Tommy. By the Gods, it should be Tommy.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" 

Wilbur had gotten used to ignoring Schlatt, so much so that it was second nature to do so. He focused, instead, on his anger. There was so much of it, a constant beast that needed feeding, a beast that was constantly kept reigned in. It was off its leash now, and Wilbur honed in on the sheer wrath that coursed through him at the thought of his little brother dying, alone and scared, by the fists of his abuser.

It took far less time than it did to create Ghostbur, and Wilbur soon found himself staring up at the prison. It was impressive, but Wilbur didn't give himself any time to take in the sights. He was on a mission, after all, and he didn't exactly trust Schlatt to have a gentle hand with Tommy (more that he didn't trust Tommy to be anything less than violent with Schlatt). 

Time was ticking, and he could only run off of anger for so long.

Wilbur (there was no time to think up a particularly clever pun for himself) enjoyed the sort of look that anger had given him. Ghostbur was greyed out, like a preserved flower on a scrapbook page. He was all fire and brimstone (Schlatt and he had joked about their afterlife being hell), his coat disappearing into smoke and ashes coming from his mouth on every exhale. 

A glimpse of himself in the water let him know that his eyes were burning flames inside empty sockets, and his hair was spiraling ash and black smoke. His fingers were covered in soot (there was some pun to be made there), and his steps burned into the grass and stone path alike.

Pandora's Vault was protected against almost any threat, but Sam had never accounted for the undead. Ghostbur, the strange shell of a persona that he had projected in a horrible attempt to make his family happy, was the only ghost. He was not a threat (had never been a threat, had been specifically created to be not a threat), and no one expected Wilbur to come back.

"Oh, Dream," he called, floating past the lava as if the platform was there.

"Wilbur?" Dream actually sounded surprised, as if the thought of him facing punishment for his crimes had never come to him.

The only thing left of his brother was a green bandana, tattered and torn and scorched with holes, and for some reason that made Wilbur shake worse.

"You know, here I thought you couldn't get any more pathetic than getting me to do your dirty work!" He laughed, cognizant enough to hear the note of madness, "But no, you just had to get worse. You just  _ had _ to go after my little brother." Hands splayed, he watched as sparks flew from his fingertips.

"Well-" Dream wasn't given a chance to finish the syllable, and Wilbur was on top of him with an arrow loaded.

"This is not the time to defend yourself, Dream," he hissed, flames licking at the back of his teeth, "This is when you start praying to whatever sort of being you believe in that you don't end up where I come from. This is not going to be quick, this is not going to be easy, because you didn't give Tommy that."

He tried to open his mouth again and Wilbur slammed his head up against the wall.

Leaning in, sparks landed on Dream's cheek as the poltergeist hissed out, "I believe in complete reciprocity, Dream, and you have so much coming for you."

\---

Wilbur came back, laughing and manic and somehow covered in blood.

"Whoa there, Loverboy," Schlatt hummed as he wrapped an arm around Wilbur's shoulders, "I don't know what you did, but Dream isn't here."

The ex-ghost (ex-ex-ghost?) just laughed, head slightly tilted back to stare up at the static stars, "I guess he's in superhell then, cause we definitely didn't go to heaven."

"This could be purgatory, we've definitely earned that."

"We've definitely earned that," Wilbur repeated, before all traces of blood disappeared from his coat and face, "Did Tommy wake up?"

"Nope, slept like a baby the entire way through, he's still asleep now."

"Good, gods know that the kid needs it."

"I think you could use some too, Loverboy." 

They stumble to the bunker, a silent agreement already overhead. The stars were static, the air was cold, and Tommy was still dead.

It was not a victory, but it was cathartic. 

Sometimes, that’s all that’s necessary.


End file.
